In the United States, most bookmakers use the moneyline format to express the odds they offer for wagers. Thus, moneyline odds are also commonly referred to as American odds. They can be either a positive number or a negative number. A positive number shows how much profit a winning wager of $100 would make, while a negative number shows how much needs to be staked to win $100.

Sometimes a line will move far enough to create a “middle” opportunity. Say the Texas Longhorns end up facing the Wisconsin Badgers in the first round of March Madness. If you have Texas early as a 5-point favorite, and I move the line to Texas –7 later in the week, then you can also place a bet on Wisconsin +7. If Texas happens to win by six points, both your bets cash in. Texas winning by either five or seven gives you a win and a push. Any other result creates a win and a loss, so you’re only risking the vigorish.

That’s easy to understand because of the payouts. If a team is heavily favored, that means they’re perceived as having a better chance of winning. If that’s the case, then you would win less money betting on them. The opposite is true for the underdog: they’re deemed as having a smaller chance of winning, which means you would get a bigger payout if you bet on them (and they won).
Let us be clear before we go any further with this strategy tip. If there is value in a bet, go ahead and make it. What we want to talk about, though, are bets where you are risking an abnormally high amount of money to win a very small amount of money. While this is still technically profitable, you might not get enough opportunities to push through the variance and realize your value.
With all that being said, there is one situation where we'd suggest the moneyline wager is usually a better option than a point spread wager. This is when you like three point underdogs in an NFL game. Only a small percentage of NFL games are decided by three points or less, so if you think a three point underdog is going to cover then you might as well bet on them to win outright. This will generally give you a much better return.
First, however, a word of caution: Sports betting can be a fun and profitable venture. However, like most good things in life there are pitfalls to be aware of. You should be able to enjoy many positive experiences as long as you bet in moderation and under control. We know you have heard this before but it definitely bears repeating: don’t bet money you can’t afford to lose, either emotionally or financially. If you or someone you know shows signs of compulsive gambling, one place to find help is Gamblers Anonymous.

If you’re new to sports betting or are a seasoned bettor looking to make some tweaks to your strategy, including moneyline bets could be a great move. They’re simple to learn and provide a fantastic way to add serious profit to your betting strategy. Don’t let their simplicity fool you. It still takes quite a bit of skill to beat them. But if you take the information we gave you here and really search for value opportunities, you’re hopefully going to be able to come out on top. Remember, sports betting is a marathon and not a sprint, so make sure to think long-term.

Conversely, in most other countries financial spread betting income is considered taxable. For example, the Australian Tax Office issued a decision in March 2010 saying "Yes, the gains from financial spread betting are assessable income under section 6-5 or section 15-15 of the ITAA 1997".[6] Similarly, any losses on the spread betting contracts are deductible. This has resulted in a much lower interest in financial spread betting in those countries.
You can also bet straight winners and losers -- with no point spreads involved -- with money line wagers. When there is a minus number you bet that amount to win $100 in profit. When there is a plus number, that is your winning profit for every $100 wagered. So if the Cowboys have a money line of -250, you would have to bet $250 on them to win $100 in profit on any Dallas victory. If the Giants had a money line of +150, you would win $150 in profit with a winning $100 bet. If a money line is posted as even, you would win a $100 profit on a $100 winning bet.

The key here is to target the point spread five and seven, because these are virtually tied as the most common margins of victory. It's important to recognize that most betting sites are only willing to sell 2 or 3 half points for 10 cents each, after which point they start charging more. Some sites sell up to four half points at this price though.

For each NFL game the oddsmakers set a number of points in which the favored team is favored by. Bettors can then either choose for the favored team to win by more than the number of points set, or bet on the underdogs to lose by less than the number of points they are underdogs by or win the game straight up. For example, the spread could be set on the favored team at 6.5 points. This would mean in order for a bet on the favored team on the spread to win they would need to win by more than 6.5 points (7 or more) in order to win the bet. It also means that a bet on the underdog team would win if the underdogs lost by less than 6.5 points (6 or less) or won the game outright.

Piggybacking on the simplicity of moneyline bets is the ease with which you can properly assess value. Now, you’ll notice that it doesn’t say “Easy to Find Value,” and that is because it’s never easy to find value in sports betting. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it for a living. What it says, though, is that it is easier to find value with moneyline bets because of the simplicity.
Money line bets are on offer on all major sports. In the NFL, baseball, the NBA and the NHL, the money line traditionally goes alongside the point spread bets – in many cases being the least popular, especially in football and basketball. In many sports there is no point spread, motor sport being a good example, so in a sport like this, the money line is the only way to bet on the outright winner. Sports with small margins of victory are also popular money line wagers – soccer being an example, where point spreads are possible, but because of the lack of goals, the money line wager is preferable (the same can apply to baseball and hockey – although puck lines and run lines are a way for the gambler to enjoy point spread betting in these).
On a moneyline bet of -300, you’ll need to win your bet 75% of the time just to break even. When your odds jump even higher to -400, you’ll need to win your bet 80% of the time to show a profit. You are risking a lot to win very little and even though a large favorite will win most of the time, when they do lose, you will find yourself out a lot of money. I try to stay away from large favorite moneylines, because the amount risked is very high and the payoff is low.
With money line bets the goal is to pick the outright winner of a game or event without the use of a point spread. While money line betting is available for sports where point spreads are used, they’re most popular in sports like baseball and soccer where very few points are scored. Money lines are also used for sports where points do not determine the winner or loser, as in auto racing or tennis.
Spread betting is one of the most popular forms of betting for sports enthusiasts and it involved speculating the outcome of a game or a match and trying to guess what the score will be and what he spread is between the two final scores of the game. With sports betting, spread bets allow punters to bet on if a team’s final points are higher or lower than a projected total. Many pointers rely on tips when they are spread betting. The first is that punters should always choose an even bet and make sure it is one they are comfortable with. Always take time to learn the stats and performance record for the teams involved so an education decision can be made.
In our earlier example, the sportsbook would be devastated if 100% of the action came in on the Falcons. The book is not looking to gamble; they are looking for a sure thing. So, to try and entice more people to bet on the Bear Cubs and discourage people from betting on the Falcons, they will alter the payouts. They will make the amount you win for correctly selecting the Bear Cubs much larger and the amount that you win for correctly selecting the Falcons much smaller.
The sportsbook will sometimes move this line if they need to encourage more bets on one side of the game. Their end goal is to have the same amount of money bet on both sides of the game so that no matter who wins, they make money. For as much as they love to facilitate gambling and betting, they don’t like to leave things to chance for themselves.
The sportsbook is not going to have props conveniently labeled as “skilled NBA props” and “gamble, gamble props,” so it’s up to you to use your common sense to decide which bets you should be getting involved with and which you should be avoiding. Remember, unskilled entertainment prop bets are not bad as long as you know that they can’t be beaten long-term unless through sheer dumb luck.
Hopefully, by now you are an absolute expert on point spread and handicap bet types. If you're still confused on anything, take your time and reread through the examples we posted and it should slowly become clearer to you. Sometimes the math can be a bit confusing to people, so take your time. If you are ever confused with a bet, you are making online or at a casino, just ask support of the agent for help to clarify. They will be more than happy to assist you in making sure you've bet on exactly what it is that you want to bet on. Don't worry, no one will laugh at you or give you a hard time because you are confused. We all were new to this one day, and they are specifically paid to help new bettors like you understand everything and have a much better betting experience.
Proline will set a point spread for each game of either -0.5 / +.05, -1.0 / +1.0, or -1.5 / +1.5. If you choose -0.5 the team must win by 1 goal or more to win your wager. If you choose +0.5 your team must win or tie the game. Note that OLG Proline includes the shoot-out for point spreads so there are never any ties for the -0.5 / +0.5 spreads. If you choose the -1.0 spread your team must win by 2 or more goals to win the bet. If they win by 1 goal exactly it is a push. If you choose the +1.0 spread your team must win the game by 1 or more goals. If they lose by 1 goal it is a push. If you choose the -1.5 spread your team must win by 2 or more goals. If you choose the +1.5 spread your team must win the game, tie, or lose by 1 goal to win the bet.
All of this is exactly the same for betting on Southhampton except you use the spreads and odds payouts that are underneath their team. You can also bet on the tie in a lot of sports, especially soccer. In the above example, the spread points would be added to Southhampton for calculations. This means that if you bet +3, you would need Southhampton to lose by exactly three goals.

This highlights a notable advantage of the moneyline wager. You get to control, to some extent, the risk versus reward. For example, you might be quite certain that the Cardinals are going to win this game, but not convinced that they're going to cover the spread. So a moneyline wager is the safe option. There's less money to be made, but less chance of losing. On the other hand, you might think that the Packers are going to cause an upset. Rather than betting on them to cover the spread, you can bet on them to win outright. There's less chance of winning such a wager, but the potential returns are much greater.

Betting “against the spread” (ATS) just means you’re betting on the point spread in a particular matchup as opposed to the moneyline, or some other type of wager. Bettors often use a team’s ATS record to gauge its performance against the spread. For example, the New England Patriots were 11-5 ATS in the 2017 regular season, meaning they covered the posted point spread 11 times, and failed to cover five times.